Tom Latham: with environmentally sustainable solutions, two, maintain services in rural communities. three, supporting vulnerable populations. four, invest in the national infrastructure. and five, ensuring transportation safety. in conclusion, we worked hard to balance many competing needs to produce a bill that reflects the

Tom Latham: transportation and housing. i'm pleased with the product and i urge members i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from iowa. . >> i thankhe chairman and yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized.

Tom Latham: >> we are considering a bill that has far-reaching impacts on the transportation infrastructure across all our districts and constituents in one way or another. for that reason alone, we should be considering this bill under an open rule so that our constituents have some say in how their tax dollars are being spent.

Tom Latham: sadly, this is not the case. before i go any further, i want to tell the membership i have enjoyed working with chairman olver and look forward to continuing to do so. while weon't always agree on everything and especially the 25% increase in the allocation over last year, but that fact does not take away my belief

Tom Latham: that he is truly a devoted chairman who focuses on the resource needs of the entities under the jurisdiction of this bill. i very much want to personally thank him for your consideration and kindness and working together. it's been a real pleasure. i also want to tell both majority and minority staffs that i sincerely appreciate

Tom Latham: we couldn't do it without you and thank you on both sides of the aisle. the funding for this bill is 25% over the fh-2009 level. that's a huge increase and one for which we ought to have a number of perfecting amendment votes as part of a serious debate if for no other reason

Tom Latham: than to allow our constituents to have some say in how those funds are spent. at some point, it should start dawning on all of us the reason we're hearing a lot of noise about some of the spending that's going on is that our constituents are waking up to the fact that they don't have a say in the exercises. mr. chairman, as the administration has said about

Tom Latham: this bill, quote, these train structure investments will help build a newfoundation for long-term economic growth to benefit the american people for years to come, end quote. and i agree. if we are indeed making long-term infrastructure investments, then the investors , or our constituents, should

Tom Latham: have a say-so in how those investments are made. one of my biggest concerns in this bill is that we do nothing to address the coming situation with the highway trust fund that runs out of money. at a point, we'll have to bail out the fund with general fund resources. i know that's not in our jurisdiction as such, but the

Tom Latham: hour is getting late and we should all be looking for the most expeditious ways to make any contribution we can to provide the resource this is a allow highway infrom structure and other transportation programs to continue with some predictability. i had an amendmento help the trust fund situation. as i mentioned earlier today, inonsideration of the rule. it would have transferred $3

Tom Latham: billion from the rapid rail appropriation to the trust fund. these funds that will not be spent any time soon while our highway trust fund screams for additional resources. the $3 billion are also funds that were not requested by the admferings for rapid rail. probably because the president

Tom Latham: only a vague concept. in the end, the amendment was not made in or political reasons, unfortunately. had it beemade in order, it would have given me some faith that the majority s willing to have a genuine debate which in turn might have drawn a few more supporters than otherwise would be the case. i will offer a different

Tom Latham: amendment to strike the $3 billion to take the rapid rail funding to the president's request. let me reiterate, that's the president's qusm the $3 billion is over and above that. ibling the president's request was a reasonable number. it will also cancel the transfer authority to this unknown infrastructure bank that has not been authorized.

Tom Latham: without the absence of any knowledge of where rapid rail program will go or what the bank will look like orven if any submitted rail projects are feasible we do not need $3 billion of taxpayer money being set aside for simply a concept. mr. chairman, i would be remiss if i did not say that there were some good points in this

Tom Latham: bill, absent a few billion unneeded dollars. make it a very attractive legislative product. with respect to h.u.d., i only want to say that this bill fu obligation to renew all rental assistance, support the homeless, increase support for low-income elderly and the